the title is too long for this box

Boys always think that they're scary, right? Well, they're wrong. I've seen somethings that mankind aren’t supposed to see. Things that need to be put into a indestructible drawer, locked with the key that was melted into a pile of metal and thrown into an abyss. My friends don’t believe me, so I hope you will. They think I’m mad, deranged, even mentally ill and I sometimes do too. Waking up in a cold sweat for 18 years, every night at midnight, gets terrifying. Never knowing if it will tap on your window again, beckoning you to come outside. And of course, you will. It looks sweet and innocent, totally virtuous, not a dark thought in its body. But, you’re wrong again. Its senses your fear, your scent, your thoughts, even your Eye. Yes, that third one that everyone has behind their neck, hidden by hair. The one adults don’t know about, the one that bites you if you try to tell. The one that was implanted by Them, the doctors, at birth, a GPS so they know where you always are. “You can run, but you can’t hide” has a deeper meaning now.
         Friday the thirteenth, always the worst day of the year. Never a happy thought crosses the mind then. The world stops revolving, the minds think that monsters lurk around every corner, the murderers come out. The movies don’t even dent the truth. The Zoorix, a scarily innocent-looking child comes out to play. At least, that’s what it looks like on the outside. On the inside is a imp, the most horrible of them all, Kruuu.  He burned for eternity in the deepest pit in the Underworld, until now. He escaped using a knife of water, extinguishing the water-proof fires. Unthinkable, right? Wrong.
         I was three when he first came to my house. He looked like a friend and asked to come in. How would I know that he would haunt me for the rest of my life? Once I unlocked the door he scampered up the stairs, leaving a trail of blood.
         “What’s wrong with your foot?” I asked him, wanting to make sure my newly found friend wouldn’t leave without playing.
         “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with my foot. It’s just a side affect of becoming immortal,” he said in a voice not meant for a child. Of course, I didn’t notice at the time, I was preoccupied with the word immortal. My vocabulary wasn’t as complete as his and it made me jealous of what he had seen beyond the fence. I quickly ran up the stairs to tell him that he could live in my closet. My parents would understand. He was just a little kid, like me. Who would drive away a cute little kid? He climbed to the top shelf and curled up in a ball. I watched him intently, but he fell asleep quickly. The darkness pulled at my eyelids, dragging me into the land of dreams.
         I woke up as dawn’s light shown through the blind’s cracks. I pulled open the closet door, but he was gone. It troubled me, but I knew he would be back. There was a part of my mind that was reminded of the vulnerable face without a bed. Just as I imagined it, he came back every night, growing as I did until the age of six. My ignorant parents still didn’t know about him, he was my secret friend, someone no one would take away from me. By the time I was twelve, he hadn’t grown an inch. He was four feet tall and played with me in the streets and woods, making a game filled with castles, dragons and knights. I, of course, was the knight and him, the dragon. He let me slay him repeatedly but always jumped back up a grin and asked to play again.
         One night, he said he was bored of Titookeyland, the land that we played in every night. He said he had something to show me, something spectacular. I believed him and followed him into the dark forests surrounding the neighborhood. He turned around abruptly and stared at me with deep red eyes. The red flickered like laughing flames, turning black, amber, orange and back again.
         He looked crazed and I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong but I stopped. I didn’t know his name. For nine years I had hung out with him and hadn’t even stopped to ask for a name. How pathetic, I thought to myself. His blood-chortling shriek broke the silence of the night. It made me cringe and cover my ears. I slid down a tree trunk and put my head between my knees, a weak try to stop the noise from reaching my eardrums. When the screaming ceased, I looked up and he was lying on the ground, convulsively shaking. I was terrified that he might scream again, but his lips were white with the effort to shut the sound inside. He shook again; then laid still.
         I crept closer and towered over his petite body, leaned in to check that he was still breathing and got a whiff of an unpleasant aroma. It was coming out of his body in smoky stalks. It smelled like a morgue, filled with bodies that hadn’t been properly embalmed. His eyes opened and he let go of his tight mouth. He sat up and started to act differently than he normally did. He grabbed a tree trunk and pulled himself up. The tree shook with the effort, though it was an old and strong tree. When he let go, the tree turned to ashes and crumbled, smoke wafting from the remains.
         He stared into my eyes and I wanted to run, but like in a dream, my legs thought they’d like to stay. His hand reached out to me and I cringed away from his touch. Yes, movement at last! His hand hesitated, and then punched himself in the face. It was like a battle between two people in one body. I watched, horrified at what my friend was doing. He kept muttering, “Not her” and I was surprisingly pleased that he wanted to save me. A grin broke across my face and stopped quickly. He was shaking with spasms again. He stayed upright with a lot of effort.
         As he stood still, his jaw split apart, creating a crack in his body running from his jaw to his chest. The crack grew bigger and as it split apart, a small red body was shown. It sat on the little boy’s heart, drinking his blood. It was only ten inches tall. Its legs dangled on his lungs, kicking them to make them deflate. He smiled at me, an eerie  smile that left me cringing into the trees. He hopped down, still grinning, and walked over to me. The murderer held out his hand. "Hello, Nicole. I am Kruuu, the leader of the imps. I can see your thoughts and put my own in your head. I am glad you are scared, but you don’t need to be. I won’t kill you as I have done to this young useless human. You are special, with special powers like mine. Do you want to uncover them?" I scooted back, staring in horror at his smug grin.
         He shook his hand slightly, gesturing me to shake it. I shook my head to clear it. I needed to escape. I had no way of knowing that he wouldn’t kill me. I kept my mind blank, but got to my feet. I reached out to supposedly shake his hand, then sprinted away to safeness of home. He reached out to my mind again. "I am the creator of the Eyes. They see for me. I will find you again. And this time, no one will stop me from taking your special powers... Torturously. I will see you soon. Farewell... " His voice faded from my head. His words terrified me, but I kept running.
         I’m thirty now and no one will believe me. I’ve hoped Kruuu won’t come back, but I can’t be sure. He said he’d find me, but would he drop the search because he lost contact with my Eye? I had my friend Dave cut it out with a pair of pliers and a butcher knife. He stole the anesthetic from the local clinic. After he finished, we wrapped it in a black scarf, set it on fire and threw it in the mayor’s mailbox. He was one of Them. He had a few things to settle with me. He was the one that had caught me running from the woods that dire night. He sent me back to my parents, who grounded me, and then told them I had ran out every night vandalizing his property.
         That isn’t true, though because I only did it once. His son had a HUGE crush on the neighborhood’s secret drunk. Herbert, ugh what a name! had been threatening me because I didn’t talk or interact with the groups hanging out at the cafe. This was courtesy of Kruuu, but no one believed me about him.  I ended up getting into a fist fight with him and won. I guess I wanted to gloat or something because that night I spray painted on his lawn “Herbert loves a Drunk!” with a lot of hearts around it. That didn’t go over well with the mayor. Everyone heard the lecture coming out of the open window.
         When Dave came over that afternoon, he asked some personal questions. I didn’t respond and that ticked him off. He started yelling and didn’t notice when I went over to the gun cabinet where I kept the butcher knife. I walked up behind him and calmly swung it down over his head. The head rolled off in one swipe and fell onto the rug with a sickening Thud! I personally had liked him, but my life had to be locked up in me or I’d be in a padded room. It was a touchy subject. I bent down to retrieve his head. He hadn’t been to close to me. I wrapped it up in the bloodstained rug and carried it out to the street. I was about to dispose of it in the trash can when I stopped myself and thought, Why not? I walked over to the mayor’s mailbox and set it in. The door slammed shut with a Bang! A smile crept up on me when I strode back to the house. This day’s been fun!
         I was laying in bed when it happened. A soft tap on the window sent my heart racing. It couldn’t be him, please don't let it be him! Another tap followed by a high pitched, ear-piercing, goosebump-raising, shiver-down-your-spine sound like someone running their fingers down a chalkboard. It sent a shudder through my body. I peeped through the blind and my blood stopped cold. No! He left! I cut out my Eye! How? Why?!? Why?!? I wailed in my mind.
         The face of the mayor smiled at me. He breathed on the glass and it started to melt like ice. The goo dripped onto the floor, eating away at it in the process. It was like acid, burning a hole in my floor. I stepped back to avoid falling in. He jumped through my window gracefully, astonishing with his new weight. He started towards me and I stepped back, my back against the door. Crap, no escape. "I’ve been watching you," he said in my mind, "this was a good time. No one will miss you. I should know, you put his head in my mailbox. A nice touch, I guess. Time for torture! Fun, fun, fun!"
         The mayor launched himself at me, body slamming me into the floor. His teeth and fingers ripped through my arms, but I didn’t feel it. I was stuck on the fact that I would die. At the age of 30, my life wasn’t over. I still had things to do. Christmas with my family, spending the New Year with a movie and a glass of wine. I needed to say goodbye to everyone that loved me.
         They would miss me. I would miss them. I had put up with the supernatural for too long. I had survived. I had lived to be 30. I will live until I’m 60. I won’t die this way. It wasn’t meant to be. I was meant for this world when I wasn’t meant for mine. This was my world and I would survive. I would survive. I would survive in any way. Soul, mind or body. He couldn’t reach my powers because they were locked up in my mind. Ouch, he ripped off my leg, almost time to go. He was drinking my blood, getting stronger and wasn’t paying attention to my thoughts. This was a battle in my body. The heart was neutral, the legs his territory, the brain mine. I would fight with my last breath. He couldn’t get into my mind without going through me. I wouldn’t back down. I had done that too many times already. Something snapped inside me and I drifted. I will survive... I will survive... I will survive... My mind kept hold of those words as it floated off to the land of eternity.
         I survived.